


whistle stop

by BrenanaBread



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Love Eater Spoilers, Spoilers, adrimi, because why not, weird train descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 06:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21031715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrenanaBread/pseuds/BrenanaBread
Summary: A Love Eater angst piece





	whistle stop

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, this is going to be irrelevant in just a few hours so let me have my moment of angst

Thinking about it makes her ache.  
  
Not the easy kind of ache—that simple, painful tug which fades over hot tea and time—but the pervasive kind that loops around her chest and tightens with every breath. The kind that drags daggers down her throat every time she sees _ them _ and pulses in her stomach when she’s reminded of a future that will never be. The ache that gnaws on her heart and throbs in her head. The kind of ache that spreads frost in her bones but scorches the skin of her cheeks. The kind of ache she can’t escape.  
  
A heavy weight on her shoulders presses her into the ground. The heels of her feet drag against the soil from a nearby park, soft and soggy from the recent rainstorm. Mud coats her flats and tickles the back of her ankles but she can’t pull herself taller, can’t convince herself to take the extra steps to the sidewalk.

She deserves this. She deserves the restless nights and the wrinkled sheets. The bitten fingernails and gritty teeth. The hollowed chest and the dark abyss as she slowly sinks.  
  
She’s spent hours or days or lifetimes listening to Chat excitedly prattle about romantic dates and first kisses.  
  
She’s spent heartache and anguish and loneliness watching Kagami grab Adrien’s hand and the soft smile he wears only for her.  
  
She’s spent wishes and dreams and yearnings huddled under a blanket until her eyes are a desert and her brain is too tired to sleep.  
  
Needles prick the small of her back every time Kagami asks her to join them for lunch. Rocks roll around her skull when Chat wants her opinion on birthday presents. Knives tear through her stomach as she’s tied to the rails of an oncoming train when Adrien asks for help for an anniversary gift.  
  
An anniversary gift for his girlfriend.  
  
A girlfriend who isn’t Marinette.  
  
“She has everything she could ever need,” he groans into his arms as he sits across a park bench from her. “What do you get a girl who has everything?”  
  
“Anniversary presents aren’t about what you need.” Marinette smiles softly at his dramatics, keeping the wavering out of her voice. “They’re about what you want.”  
  
He huffs. “She can get anything she wants.”  
  
Marinette shakes her head, bangs skittering across her forehead in a way that makes her want to rip off her skin. “Let me rephrase, they’re about what you don’t even know you want.” She concentrates on the way her tongue taps her teeth. She finds new forms of distraction every day. “They’re a reminder you’re thinking about her. That you know her. That you care enough to put in the effort.”  
  
He mulls over her words for a moment, pulling his head up from his arms and wiping a crusty bit of sleep from his eye.  
  
It’s distressingly human. Months ago, she would have given her whole world to see him so comfortable and trusting. But now it only reminds her of a life she can’t have, a yearning she can never satisfy.  
  
“I have an idea,” he starts, eyes darting to hers and she tries to pull away—she tries so hard—but she’s once again caught in his headlights. “But I’m going to need your help.”  
  
She tilts her head, inviting him to elaborate.  
  
“I want to make her something.” He doesn’t continue, but Marinette doesn’t know how to respond, so she lets his words die between them as the wind blows crunchy leaves over their backpacks.  
  
“She’s always cold.”  
  
Marinette shivers.  
  
“So I was thinking, what if I made her a scarf?”  
  
His eyes are too bright and Marinette bites her lower lip to hold in a whimper.  
  
“That...that’s a great idea.” She says slowly. “Fantastic, even.” She leans forward to place a hand on his, but at the last moment can’t bear the thought of his touch and instead crushes a fallen leaf with her thumb. “She’ll love it.”  
  
His smile is radiant.  
  
“Do you think you could help me? I don’t really know how to knit,” he admits with a self-conscious shrug of his shoulders “but those mittens you gave Alya last Christmas were amazing.”  
  
She doesn’t know if she’s blushing or if she’s just been lit on fire.  
  
She fidgets in her seat. “I don’t know if it was _ that _ great—”  
  
“They were amazing, Marinette,” he cuts her off. “You’re amazing.”  
  
She’s motionless for a moment. There’s thunder in her ears and her vision is splotchy. She knows he means it, _ she knows, _ but she can’t help the itch she feels under her skin or the rope on her chest constricting her breaths. He doesn’t mean it the way she wishes he could.  
  
His smile is equal parts hopeful and encouraging as glass shatters all around her and she falls through his too-green gaze and his too-deep dimples and his too-soft assurances.  
  
She could say no. She’s busy with school. She doesn’t have enough supplies. She just has too many on-going projects. She hates knitting. _ Anything_.  
  
But she was never good at telling the blond boys in her life when she couldn’t take another ounce of weight on her heart.  
  
_ “She’s so smart and pretty _ — _ beautiful, honestly _ — _ and sometimes…” his eyes trail along the Parisien skyline as he contemplates his words “...sometimes I think she’s the only person in the world who could understand me.” _  
  
_ Ladybug is grateful his gaze isn’t trained on her as she reels back as if she were slapped. _  
  
_ “She’s got this laugh that kills me. It’s like tinkling _ — _ like bells!” he almost yells into the night. “And her eyes _ — _ her eyes! _ — _ they’re warm and dark and sometimes they practically sparkle with mischief.” _  
  
_ “Sounds like you really love her,” Ladybug chokes out. _  
  
_ He hums. “Sometimes I think I do.” He glances over his shoulder and Ladybug swiftly looks away before he can see the moisture gathering in her eyes. “But then, I don’t know.” _  
  
_ She could take this and run. She could tell Chat she loves him, she could pour all her feelings of isolation and misplaced betrayal onto his old, mended wounds and pray he’ll find someway to love her again, beg the universe to let her hurt him one more time so they can heal together. _  
  
_ But she knows that isn’t right. _  
  
_ “You don’t have to know,” she says instead. “There’s no pressure to figure out your feelings on anyone’s time but your own.” _  
  
_ “Thanks, Ladybug.” She can hear the smile in his voice but doesn’t dare turn her head to look at him. She longs for the terms of endearment that vanished from his vocabulary so long ago. She aches for the casual touches and the corny jokes and the wishful stares. _  
  
_ “And, Chat?” she asks, cursing the tremble in her voice. _  
  
_ “Mmm?” _  
  
_ “I’m really happy for you.” _  
  
She digs her fingernails into the flesh of her palm and buries her toe against a rock until she’s grounded enough to be sure she won’t collapse.  
  
Her shoulders roll back as the train comes around the bend, bright lights staring her down.  
  
She doesn’t struggle in her ropes, letting the lull of wheels over track time her rapid breaths.  
  
“Of course, Adrien.”  
  
The whistle blows happily and it’s close enough Marinette can see the conductor’s dark hair pulled back into pigtails and their vacant bluebell eyes.  
  
“I’d be happy to help.”  
  
It’s almost a relief when she’s finally crushed.

**Author's Note:**

> If it makes you feel any better, that hurt me too.
> 
> I'm jattendschaton on tumblr if you want to yell at/with me <3


End file.
